What once ensured that I sat at a table next to the teacher is now posted, Monday through Friday.

I've contributed to perhaps the best humor compilation I've ever read. Available now on Amazon!

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The Apres-Bar Will Be Held in the Alley

Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) turns five next Tuesday; and as you can imagine, preparations are underway. The National Guard has been alerted, anything of value has been wrapped up and stored in the basement in boxes marked “Taxes: 1990-1999”, and the catnip grown in and around Hennepin County has been bagged and marked at inflated prices.

Inexplicably, the Office of Homeland Security insists that the threat level remains at “orange”.

Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) is a cat who once returned my car with a typewritten manuscript in the trunk purporting to be a collaboration between her and Hunter S. Thompson. When I pointed out to her that Hunter S. Thompson died the year she was born, she simply raised one eyebrow and said, “Did he, now?”

That Liza Bean Bitey.

Two years ago I took her out for sushi for her birthday, a debacle still fresh in my mind, particularly since I cannot walk past any of the local police without them making clawing motions at me while chuckling the words “Meow! Meow!”

Last year’s birthday celebration was a quiet affair: a houseful of her friends over for “paw” food (trays of puree of mouse on Ritz crackers, bird bits on toast points, gin and tonics). The party eventually moved to the roof and Squeak Toy played until the police were called, but no charges were filed; and as I had enjoyed the drinks as much as anyone else and had agreed to not write about it, the details have moved into the fuzzy-and-disputable category.

Which brings us to this year’s celebration.

A pub crawl – or, perhaps more accurately, a pub slink.

The plan? She and her friends - including members of her last musical endeavor, A Band of Biteys, now that she and the drummer have settled their legal dispute - will leave the house Saturday night at 8:00. With a dozen bars in easy slinking distance, they will go to one after another, waiting for that moment when the door opens whereupon they will shoot in, four and five at a time, winding 'round ankles, dodging the good citizens of Northeast Minneapolis and pushing their fuzzy bellies up against the bar.

Ad hoc neighborhood watches are being formed as we speak.

If last year’s celebration is any yardstick for this year’s, I will awaken early to dozens of cats strewn about, on couches, atop the fridge, in the tub. I'll make scrambled eggs and ham and buttered toast. Coffee will be made and aspirin offered; and despite my protestations, I will find ten-dollar bills attached to handwritten thank-you notes tucked throughout the house after they leave.

33 comments:

I have let our cat Festus read a few of the Liza Bean Post of yours and he askes everyday about her. He wants to meet her an askes if she has a Facebook page. He's curious(DUH) about being in her band. He has been practicing playing the spring door stop most nights(Around 2 or 3 AM). Is she lookin for a Twanger? Signed, I need some Sleep.

Sweetie, as you know, Liza Bean Bitey (of the Mpls Biteys) and Dolly Gee Squeakers (formerly of the Humane Society Squeakers) have a love-hate relationship. Liza believes that Dolly is an opportunist and cannot hold her liquor and Dolly feels that Liza is an over-educated snob with a palate that extends past her wallet. They are both correct.

So will Dolly be joining them? I would say "yes". Dolly's actually quite a tramp when she's drunk, so I'm foreseeing posts on said tramp-ness in the near future...

I know a certain Pup, a great lover of cats, who would have been tickled pink to be invited... even though he knows he is a bit bigger than the rest, he does like to belly up to the bar with a bunch of pussy cats.

Perhaps, next year, Mz. Liza Bean would be interested in a Cowboy Round Up...you know, she and her feline-friends could all gather round and help herd the cattle. What? You've never heard of herding cats? You DO live a ways up thar in the North, doncha?

I caught Admiral Fluffy the other day looking at a picture in a locket and ask him who that symmetrically striped, tiny-pawed catcher of mice and demander of cream was. He just closed the locket and looked at me with a sigh. I know she is the reason he needs the sea. It takes him away, and, for a short time, cures his broken heart. We will be taking a rather low key approach to her upcoming birthday and I will just be there to clean up his puke when he drinks himself into a stupor as he tries to forget.

I feel your pain, my kitty also engages in some pretty wild antics. The parties always seem to end the same, the neighbours complaining about the volume of the Stray Cats blaring from the speakers, the inevitable fight over who is the hotter, Josie of Josie and the pussycats, or catwoman. And finally all the guests indulging in a group lick fest that would rival some of Caligula's events.